Why Are 1922 Coins Hidden in the Welcome to Las Vegas sign?

The friend I travel is a bird watcher, so he always carries binoculars in his fanny pack. Last week in Vegas, we stopped for selfies at the Welcome sign and something caught his eye, so he looked through his binoculars and saw the image of coins behind the Neon letters that spell Welcome and the date 1922. We couldn't even begin to figure out what all that signified. Can you tell us?

The date 1922 is faintly visible behind and beneath the "Welcome" letters, which are contained in individual round backgrounds. Your friend might have also seen the words Liberty along the top of the circle, with some other coin markings in between. This backdrop to the letters corresponds to the "Peace" silver dollar that went into circulation in 1921, issued as a celebration of world peace after World War I, and coined until 1935.

However, the "Welcome" sign wasn't built until 1959.

Strangely enough, the primary significance of the year 1922 in Vegas history was a railroad strike that shut down the fledgling town. The railroad company, the Union Pacific, retaliated by closing its Las Vegas machine shops forever, so 1922 hardly seems a landmark year worthy of celebrating, so the choice of imagery is somewhat mysterious.

"Nobody seems to know" why the 1922 dollar was chosen, says University of Nevada-Las Vegas history professor Michael Green, "and the general conclusion is that sign-designer Betty Willis wanted silver dollars to represent the Silver State. Those happened to be the ones in circulation at the time."

It was also the last silver dollar ever circulated, mainly in the west, thereby holding some significance for Nevada, the Silver State.

Mark Patton-Hall, museum administrator for Clark County, told us, "The [1922] date's not significant, but the dollar is used because that's what we used as a chip here prior to the introduction of plastic gaming tokens. They were supposed to evoke an image of good luck. It meant you were going to be lucky in Las Vegas."

Incidentally, the Peace silver dollar has been reissued this year as a commemorative, marking the 100th anniversary of its introduction. It's available from the UK-based Pobjoy Mint for $99.95.

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Comments

David Jul-01-2021

Pobjoy Mint?

Never heard of it.  Now if you want to plug the six being issued by the US Mint, the first 2 which sold out in 11 minutes, being delivered in October, and are going for 4-5x the issue price on eBay, that might be worthy of LVA.  The next two in the series drop on August 3rd.

Dave_Miller_DJTB Jul-01-2021

“Nobody knows…”

You’d think somebody would have asked her. The opportunity was certainly there since she lived for 56 years after the sign was first erected….

Brent Peterson Jul-01-2021

1922 Meaning?

Betty Willis was conceived in 1922.

[email protected] Jul-01-2021

1922 Peace Dollar

The 1922 Peace Dollar was the first year of that design of Peace Dollar.  The 1921 High Relief Peace Dollar was scrapped because the high relief design made it too difficult to produce, thus a design change making it lower relief.  Although the 1921 was put into circulation, it sometimes is referred to as a 1 year design.  When choosing the silver dollar in 1959, they probably found that the last silver dollar was the low relief Peace dollar minted from 1922-1935.

Kevin Lewis Jul-01-2021

Silver dollars in Reno

The Cal-Neva in Reno, for a long time, used silver dollars instead of $1 chips--they were Eisenhower dollars, so not worth any more than face value. But those who worked in the coin sorting room learned to spot and remove the occasional Peace dollar. And of course, they turned those dollars in, naturally, you betcha.

(The pre-1963 silver quarters and halves were removed from circulation in similar fashion, in casino counting rooms everywhere.)

Question of the Day - 01 July 2021

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